the Council of State validates the reform of the calculation of the allowance

It was the last obstacle to the implementation of a major social reform of the five-year term. On Wednesday 15 December, the Council of State rejected the appeal on the merits of the unions against the new calculation of unemployment benefit which entered into force on 1er October.

“There is no need to rule on the conclusions of the requests directed against the provisions of the decree of March 30, 2021”, which modified the calculation of the allowance, concludes the Council of State in its decision, published Wednesday.

“With this rejection, we can consider that the litigation on the reform is closed”CGT lawyer Me Antoine Lyon-Caen. “There will still be a substantive hearing on the entry date [en vigueur, le 1er octobre, objet d’un autre décret], but it will be purely formal ”, he assured.

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Lower monthly allowance for over a million applicants

The judges followed the opinion of the public rapporteur Marie Sirinelli who had rejected during the hearing of November 15 the different “Reviews” unions.

Fiercely opposed since the start of the reform, the latter believe that the new method of calculating the daily reference wage (SJR), the basis of the allowance, will penalize job seekers alternating unemployment and activity, “Permittent”. Gold “A large majority of jobs created today are contracts of less than a month”, had indicated in October Yves Veyrier (secretary general of FO), during the rejection of a first appeal of the unions aimed at invalidating the entry into force of the reform.

For the judges of the Council of State, these differences in treatment noted by Unédic “Benefit people whose periods of employment are closest” and are not “Manifestly disproportionate”.

According to an assessment by Unédic last April, up to 1.15 million people opening rights in the year following the entry into force of the reform would receive a lower monthly allowance (by 17% on average), with at the same time a “Theoretical duration of compensation” lengthened (fourteen months on average against eleven before the reform). The Ministry of Labor disputes this figure which, according to it, does not take into account the improvement in the economic situation or “Behavioral effects” hoped for as a result of the reform.

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The rest of the contested reform has also been applied since 1er December. It is now necessary to have worked six months over the last twenty-four months instead of four out of the last twenty-eight to benefit from unemployment benefit. According to the Unédic impact study, this passage from four to six months will lead, during the first year of application to delay the opening of rights for 475,000 people, in particular young people or seasonal workers who multiply short contracts (CDD or temporary assignments), often with the same employer.

The 30% degression (for unemployed people under 57 years of age who have lost earnings above 4,500 euros gross) applies to the seventh month and no longer to the ninth.

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The World with AFP

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